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Archive for May, 2014

The past several years my lament has been the same-I want spring, a proper spring, a spring with its share of sunny yet still cool days where one travels with a light sweater. I want days of gentle breezes on tender blades of grass. I want days with the flow of spring blossoms, from crocuses to tulips to irises and poppies, to alliums and spirea and to the night call of honeysuckle. I want a spring that starts with quietly emerging spikes of fresh green from a ground savoring the drops of melted snow and slow to let loose its hold of that chalice, winter’s gift to the new season’s life. I want a spring with softly blustery skies, that tease and wink and release their tears of joy, the gentle drops of rain that awaken the canopy of green, the drops that paint the bark of trees and the earth below them dark with the rich smell of life. I want gentle drops like the drops of white blossoms dotting the ground, swaying to the side as the grass stretches out of its imitation of death to fool the harsh winter winds. I want to walk with the song of my soul dancing with the symphony of the earth around, the soft swishing of the grass as it grows, reaching up from the ground to the warmth above, the soft call, the mystic music of the morning birds, quietly beginning when all is still dark, calling you from the night, from the night of all past seasons and to the mystic dawn of this day and of all the days before and yet to come.

But days have changed. This is a new climate, a climate of extremes. This year, as in other years the spring comes too late and is gone, too soon. My spring is gone, all too soon. Today, near the end of May, as I drove home from work I saw and smelled June. Summer is here.

Today I cried with my daughter and Maggie, her dog. Maggie, Magoogles. Fragoogle, GeeGee, Smells, Maggie Moo, Snorty Moo, a dog of so many nick names, a dog with so much personality. Maggie lay stretched out on the floor, her poor body full of tumors and in so much pain. The two of them would be leaving, in a short time, journeying south.

I remember when my daughter called me at my place of employment, told me she was coming to the city to go to the Humane Society to get a dog and asked me if I wanted to meet her there. We went from kennel to kennel, she decided on “Princess”, as she was named, a brindled 6 month old pit boxer mix huddled in the back corner, anxious and a little afraid. An interview, an adoption fee, a collar and a leash, and a borrowed crate, a name change to Maggie, the two of them were headed south, back to the university.

Maggie, was small for her breed, but a mighty dog. She had so much energy and exuberance! She could drag you to to ground while you held on to her leash for dear life. She could jump and repel herself from wall to wall as high as a grown man’s head. She could jump, straight up and down, Pepe LePew style. No counter top was safe. She batted a soccer ball around with the soccer team one day. She would hang out on the roof, accessed from an upstairs window and bark at people and squirrels. She hung out at parties and made it her job to clean up what ever dropped to or spilled onto the floor.

She had her moments, her quirks, her anxiety issues. She would claw through drywall, plaster and lathe, concrete if she had to. There were frequent battles of the wills. She was a dog with a cat personality. (We had commented how at times the name Princess had actually suited her.) She could balance any size piece of food or treat for minutes on end at the very tip of her nose, pointed straight up, and then toss it up into the air with a flick of her head and catch every time. She loved to sun herself in full sunlight in the middle of a hot July day and then come in panting- so hot, or curl up so close to the fire place, her fur becoming so hot it was a wonder she didn’t spontaneously combust. She loved to sleep under the blankets in winter, going around in circles until she had the nest just right and then snuggling in close for sleep. She bounded like an antelope over drifts of snow and would throw herself to roll on cool green grass, refusing to budge when she was tired of a walk. But utmost, she was my daughter’s loyal protector and friend.

She loved car rides-her front legs balancing her at the window, her head out, looking ahead, her ears flapping wildly in the wind. Today she took her last car ride.